These figures once more bring before our eyes the [[307]]ruinous effect of the economic policy of the Russian Government upon the Ukraine. The natural resources of the Ukraine are exported in enormous masses, without consideration of the needs of the Ukrainian population; the imports are to a great extent directed to other far distant coasts of the Russian Empire, and Great Russia gets the advantage of them, while the Ukraine is flooded with the inferior goods of Central Russian industry. If we consider, further, that an annual customs balance of 200 million rubles goes to the central government from the Ukraine, an amount which is then used for the development of the central provinces, we become able to understand under what unfavorable conditions the economic life of the Ukraine must develop, and how dearly its progress must be paid for.
[1] 1 crown (1 krone) = 20 cents (U. S. A.) [↑]
The Districts and Settlements of Ukraine
For centuries robbed of its political independence, the Ukraine today simply vegetates, instead of living in a state of full development. The fatal results of its lack of independence are visible in every aspect of the material and spiritual life of the country.
The present political-administrative division of the Ukraine is also a result of the want of political independence of this nation. This division corresponds neither to the natural nor to the anthropogeographical conditions, and to a great degree represents only entirely antiquated, now worthless remnants of the statesmanship of former centuries.
Even the state boundaries are very unnaturally drawn in the Ukrainian territory. The Austrian crown-province of Galicia embraces parts of Rostoche, Volhynia, Podolia, Pokutye, while other parts of this natural territory lie outside the state border, in Russia. The topography and the people are the same on both sides of the cordon; only [[308]]the state authorities and the ruling races are different. The Carpathian boundary between the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the Ukraine, to be sure, seems a good natural boundary, but in reality it would be that only if it ran along the southern foot of the range. For the Carpathian region of the Ukraine, as a result of its easy communications constitutes not only a physico-geographical, but also an anthropogeographical unit. On both sides of the border live the same Lemkos, Boikos and Hutzuls.
More glaringly still does the unnaturalness of the present political division of the Ukraine stand out, when we view the administrative units in the framework of the states which at present dominate the Ukraine. In Hungary, the Ukrainian part of the land is united into one great whole, together with Slavonia, Transylvania, Alföld, Banat, etc. All is centered in Budapest. Even the boundaries of the autonomous countries are so constructed that, besides a piece of Ukrainian territory, they embrace an equally great or even greater, but, at any rate, heavily peopled piece of a foreign national territory, e.g., of the Roumanian, Magyar, Slovenian. As a result of this scattering allotment, the Ukrainians of Hungary possess no political influence.
The same is the case in the Austrian parts of the Ukraine. Galicia proper, which is inhabited by Ukrainians, the nucleus of the ancient Ukrainian Kingdom of Halich, which, in its physico-geographical aspect, is wholly a part of Eastern Europe, is welded together with the so-called Western Galicia, properly a part of Little Poland (grand-duchy of Cracow), which is inhabited entirely by Poles and belongs physically to Central Europe, both halves constituting together one administrative unit. The result of this unnatural union is the bitter racial struggle of century-long duration between the Poles and Ukrainians, a struggle which is still going on without prospect of peace, and is [[309]]very unfavorable for the beneficial development of the land. The Ukrainians are fighting for equal rights and against Polonization; the Poles, in the name of their state tradition, for their hegemony in the land and for the forcible assimilation of the Ukrainians. The only remedy which presents itself would be the division of the present crown-province of Galicia into two crown-provinces, an eastern Ukrainian, and a western Polish province. The present crown-province of Bukowina also consists of parts of Pokutye, Pidhirye and the Ukrainian Carpathians, together with a part of the Roumanian Carpathian foothills. This circumstance again brings about a national struggle between the Ukrainians and the Roumanians.